The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
